[vbox-dev] VirtualBox official debug builds/debug symbols

[Michael Thayer]

Hello Both,

On the whole the debug build should be usable for day to day work for a
developer (not for an innocent person of course).  Assertions can be
made non-fatal by either running in the debugger ("gdb VBoxSVC" in one
terminal and "gdb --args VirtualBox --startvm ..." in another) - the
preferred option - or setting the environment variable VBOX_ASSERT=no.
See the source file src/VBox/Runtime/VBox/RTAssertShouldPanic-vbox.cpp.
I must admit that I was never happy with the "gdb" option, to the extent
that I added the "wait" option for myself, but feel free to experiment.

I would certainly recommend trying to investigate using a debug version.
 That said, you can also build your own release version.  Building with
"VBOX_WITHOUT_HARDENING=1" set will probably make you happier either way.

Regards
Michael

10.04.2018 22:35, Mihai Hanor wrote:
> Hi Samuel,
> 
> The VirtualBox debug build is not for regular usage. The debug build
> runs unoptimized code and some of its code paths may differ from a
> release build. This includes debug assertions, that will stop your VM or
> even the host OS without warning, if they trigger. On Windows, at least,
> an assert in the VirtualBox kernel driver will stop your OS with a BSOD
> -- I don't know how the Linux kernel handles a kernel module fault. With
> a debug build, it may even be harder or impossible to reproduce a
> scenario. You can use the official build to see where it crashes, then
> use a self-build release build to obtain a detailed stack trace, if the
> crash is in VirtualBox code. From this point forward, it depends on the
> issue and your skills.
> 
> Best regards,
> Mihai
> 
> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 6:31 PM, Samuel Rats <srats at genymobile.com
> <mailto:srats at genymobile.com>> wrote:
> 
>     Hi VBox people!
> 
>     In order to investigate an issue I recently opened
>     (https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/17644
>     <https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/17644>), I was looking for some
>     official debug builds of the VirtualBox package, but couldn't manage
>     to find any.
>     Even the "testing" builds are release build.
> 
>     Can I find them somewhere, or should I build VirtualBox in debug
>     mode myself?
>     Additional question, do you know if the debug build is of VirtualBox
>     is much slower than a release build, or is it still usable for
>     days-to-days operations?
> 
>     This issue is really bothering us, and I have time to
>     investigate/fix it.
>     Thanks in advance.
> 
>     --
>     Samuel Rats
>     _______________________________________________
>     vbox-dev mailing list
>     vbox-dev at virtualbox.org <mailto:vbox-dev at virtualbox.org>
>     https://www.virtualbox.org/mailman/listinfo/vbox-dev
>     <https://www.virtualbox.org/mailman/listinfo/vbox-dev>
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> vbox-dev mailing list
> vbox-dev at virtualbox.org
> https://www.virtualbox.org/mailman/listinfo/vbox-dev
> 

-- 
Michael Thayer | VirtualBox engineer
ORACLE Deutschland B.V. & Co. KG | Werkstr. 24 | D-71384 Weinstadt

ORACLE Deutschland B.V. & Co. KG
Hauptverwaltung: Riesstraße 25, D-80992 München
Registergericht: Amtsgericht München, HRA 95603

Komplementärin: ORACLE Deutschland Verwaltung B.V.
Hertogswetering 163/167, 3543 AS Utrecht, Niederlande Handelsregister
der Handelskammer Midden-Nederland, Nr. 30143697
Geschäftsführer: Alexander van der Ven, Jan Schultheiss, Val Maher